Belated Finale

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A Cut Short series is Uncanceled for one last episode (or The Movie) for the sake of resolving all the plot threads that were Left Hanging.

Contrast Belated Happy Ending where a sequel makes something that ended have a happier ending.

Not to be confused with Distant Finale, where the ending is set many years after the main action of the story, but the finale itself is part of the original work.

As an Ending Trope, Spoilers ahead may be unmarked. Beware.

Examples of Belated Finale include:

When the Belated Finale is in a different medium (for example, TV series Firefly and movie Serenity), please list the example under the original medium.

Comic Books

  • Power Pack was canceled at issue 62 in February of 1991 after 10 issues of poor sales under a new team. The Power Pack Holiday Special was released in February of 1992 and featured the original team doing a conclusion to the team's story while giving Author's Saving Throws to some character destroying additions made by the final issues.

Live-Action TV

  • A cross-media example: the TV series Firefly got a wrap-up movie, Serenity.

Oral Tradition, Myths and Legends

  • Some of Arthurian Legend's writers were hired to finish works left unfinished by previous authors. Unfortunately these are not exceptions to how no two writers of "classic" King Arthur could keep details consistent between them.

Western Animation

  • Hey Arnold! The Movie premiered in 2002 and flopped while doing little to resolve the plot, killing the series and its planned finale. In 2016 the planned Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie was finally greenlit and broadcast as a made for TV movie in 2017.
  • Invader Zim, also canceled by Nickelodeon in 2002, Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus! was greenlit in 2017.
  • The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo ended with only 11 of the 13 ghosts captured. After 33 years, a finale movie Scooby-Doo and the Curse of the 13th Ghost was announced as a direct to DVD movie.
  • The Pirates of Dark Water ended early 1993 with only eight of the thirteen treasures collected. In 1994 the Sega Genesis video game based on the series was released, featuring the remaining 5 treasures and final fights against Bloth and the sapient Dark Water.
  • The unmade final episode of Dungeons and Dragons, which aired its last episode in 1985, was produced as a radio play for the DVD release in 2008.